Lockpicking
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: Ikoma shares the story behind one of his more unusual skills.


**Title:** Lockpicking  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** G.  
**Characters:** Ikoma, Takumi, Kajika, Sukari.  
**Setting:** General.  
**Summary:** Ikoma shares the story behind one of his more unusual skills.  
**Disclaimer:** They belong to Kabaneri Committee and other relevant parties. I'm just playing with them.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompts of "Locked" and "Wire" at Fan Flashworks, and "Memory" at Small Fandom Flash. It ended up being a little more bittersweet than I expected, but hopefully the _sweet_ wins out.

* * *

It was evening aboard the _Kotetsujo_, and Ikoma sat with more than a dozen boxes piled around him. They were of different sizes and makes, from small wooden jewelry boxes, to stout metal cases, to a pair of footlockers and one large steamer trunk that stood on the deck beside his bunk. A common trait shared by these varied containers was that each one was locked—and there was not a key to be found between them.

Their _other_ commonality was that the _Kotetsujo_'s crew had just salvaged them from the wreckage of a derailed train.

Judging by the weathered condition of the wreck, the accident had happened months prior, leaving its victims long past help. The human remains at the scene—and tragically, there were many—had decayed to little more than bones. Evidently once refugees on their way to safety, these unfortunate souls had escaped a Kabane invasion of their station, only to meet their end through injuries in the crash… or worse, by becoming prey to a passing horde of Kabane as they awaited rescue.

What did survive was much of the cargo and personal belongings the train carried. No other train crew that may have passed the site had touched anything. As with most people, their fear of a sudden Kabane attack must have been so strong that they would not risk stopping. It appeared that someone had hurriedly cleared a few large sections of twisted metal from the tracks, but that was all.

A few passengers on the _Kotetsujo_ grumbled against collecting salvage from the wreck, but Miss Ayame countered them with gentle yet firm reasoning. It was a waste to leave resources abandoned if they could be recovered safely—which the _Kotetsujo_ was in a unique position to do, having Kabaneri guardians to provide forewarning and protection against Kabane attacks. Any finds that were not of use to their own people could be sold at a station, and thereby still be of value to someone. And finally, she asserted that if the living could be helped by the material things they left behind, the dead would surely be glad.

Perhaps not everyone was completely swayed by these arguments, but in the end, practicality won out. There was no further objection to a handful of steamsmiths going out to perform the salvage work, escorted by the Kabaneri and a team of armed bushi. The steamsmiths spent the next few hours collecting everything they could from the crumpled husks of the derailed train cars—including the collection of locked boxes that Ikoma was now occupied with. After seeing Sukari about to smash the lock off of one with a hammer, the Kabaneri had quickly volunteered his lockpicking skills to spare the boxes themselves from further damage.

He was not alone. His fellow steamsmiths sat on their bunks or on the deck, cleaning and repairing various recovered objects that lay spread out around them. There was little conversation; working among the bones of the dead had cast a somber mood upon them all. Regardless of any guilt over scavenging at what was effectively a gravesite, the grim scene was a reminder that they could be just as vulnerable to a similar accident.

Ikoma frowned, looking up from the finely carved and painted jewelry box in his hand. He felt equally solemn about the death they had witnessed that day, but he didn't want his friends to dwell on the _what-ifs_ of their nomadic life on the tracks. Nor did he want them to feel guilty for being resourceful survivors who dared when others feared: whether by salvaging supplies from a train wreck, or by trusting him when he had lost his humanity.

What was needed, then, was for someone to lighten the mood. Ikoma highly doubted he was enough of a conversationalist to manage it, but he resolved to try.

"I've never told all of you about how I learned to pick locks, have I?" he asked abruptly into the silence.

The other steamsmiths glanced up, looking surprised and interested. Ikoma was well known to be fairly private about his past, having spoken little of it apart from the events of his sister's death. His volunteering to tell another story from his former life—his _human_ life—was enough to gain their attention.

"I asked you about it once, the first time I saw you do it," Takumi recalled with a faint grin. "But you weren't really all that _talkative_ in those days."

"Yeah. Well." With a _click_, the lock of the jewelry box surrendered to a twist of the bent wire Ikoma's fingers skillfully maneuvered. He set the box aside without opening it, and drew a larger, rather heavy metal case into his lap. As he proceeded to probe the tumblers of its lock in turn, he continued to speak, his voice soft and distant.

"It's kind of a funny story, actually. When my sister was very young, she used to love playing hide-and-seek. She wanted me to play it with her _all the time_—so much that it got kind of annoying." He chuckled ruefully, remembering small hands that would tug insistently at his arm, and a voice that would plead and wheedle until he gave in.

"One day when our parents weren't home, Hatsune found me reading under the tree outside, and asked to play hide-and-seek as always. But I'd just been given a new book—that was always a special day for me, since we could rarely afford them—and I didn't want to put it down. …So I _lied_ to her. I told her that I'd look for her, but after she ran off to hide, I just kept reading. I figured I'd only bought myself some peace for a little while before she came pouting to me again… but more than an hour passed, and she didn't come back."

Kajika clapped a hand over her mouth. "Uh-oh. I think I can see where this is going."

"I guess it is pretty obvious. When I finally went into the house to find her, the first thing I heard was muffled sobbing from inside a cabinet." Ikoma sighed. "_Of course_ Hatsune had decided it would make a great hiding spot—only to have it lock on her when the door shut. She'd been stuck in there the whole time."

Winces and snickers of amused sympathy passed among Ikoma's friends. He nodded and shrugged, half-smiling painfully.

"When she heard me trying to open the door, she started screaming at me from the inside. I think she might have done more _blaming_ me than begging me to get her out… and guilty as I felt about taking so long to find her, I couldn't really blame her." Ikoma pinkened. "Besides that, I started to panic at the thought of our parents coming home and seeing that I'd let this happen. I was too afraid to break the lock because I knew _that_ would get me in trouble too, but I didn't know where the key was. In desperation, I ran around grabbing whatever pieces of wire or bent nails I could find, and started shoving them in the keyhole—just trying to make the lock _open_."

Sukari chuckled. "So basically, throw _anything_ at it until you find something that works? Sounds like an Ikoma strategy, alright."

"Sometimes that's the only way to learn," Ikoma asserted. "Anyway, by the time I found a wire that was sturdy enough not to bend, I'd started to get a feel for the tumblers inside the lock. I began to picture the way they worked in my head—kind of the same way I do with designs for weapons. Once I had that idea of what I was doing, figuring out how to push the tumblers in the right places to release the bolt didn't take much longer. Finally I was able to open the door, and Hatsune fell out into my arms, with her face all red and teary-eyed. The way she hugged me, I felt like a hero for a second… until I heard her take a deep breath to _yell_ at me again. But that just happened to be the moment our parents came in."

"Oh, man," Takumi laughed, wide-eyed. "Did you get in trouble?"

"I _thought_ I was going to. I thought Hatsune was going to burst into tears and tell them what happened, and how badly I _failed_ to keep an eye on her… but she didn't. Instead she claimed that while hiding in the cabinet, she'd gotten a splinter in her finger, and she'd been crying because I just helped her take it out. I don't know if our parents ever really believed that, but they didn't ask any questions." Ikoma rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Hatsune still let me have it _later_ when we were alone, though. She made me promise I wouldn't ignore her again when she wanted to play hide-and-seek. The next day, she made me play it with her _all day_—and you can believe I hurried to find her every time. …I was determined never to let that happen again."

Quickly Ikoma stifled the twinge of nostalgic guilt before it could morph into a much deeper remorse. Years later he _had_ failed Hatsune again, far more tragically; but that was a story his friends already knew. When his intention was to lighten their mood, the last thing he wanted was to remind them of his loss.

To his relief, the others made no such connection, as Takumi leaned forward with a grin. "So I guess that's why you got better at lockpicking too. You wanted to make sure you could get Hatsune out of any other place she got _stuck_ in."

"That's _partly_ the reason," Ikoma conceded. "But besides that, looking back on it after the panic of the moment, it was _interesting_. Like figuring out a puzzle. When I tried the worn-out old lock on the cabinet again, I realized how easy it really was. I wanted to find out if others would be more of a challenge—so I started practicing on any lock I could get my hands on, and improving my skill." He smiled ruefully. "It's a lucky thing for me, too. When the Kabane broke into Aragane Station, if I couldn't have gotten out of that quarantine cell I was locked up in, I probably would have died there. So in the end… I owe my sister for saving _me_."

And there was a simple, startling connection that _Ikoma_ had never made before. He had to dwell on it for a few moments, blinking behind his glasses and swallowing hard, as a new surge of guilt and love and gratitude squeezed tight within his heart cage.

_In a way, you were still there for me that night—even after I wasn't there for you. …Thank you, Hatsune._

His friends honored the realization with a thoughtful, sweetly melancholy moment of silence, leaving him to feel guilty as well for having sobered them when he meant to cheer them up. At last Kajika was the first to stir, moving from her bunk to push aside one of the lock boxes and sit beside Ikoma. She smiled up at him tenderly, her shoulder just barely touching his.

"You know, I think it's the same as Miss Ayame said about the people who died in the train wreck—how they'd be glad if the things they left behind could help us. I'm sure Hatsune would also be glad to know you were saved by the skill she _accidentally_ made you learn."

It was a comforting thought. Ikoma returned her smile, nodding appreciatively. "…Yeah."

"So, anyway." Eyeing the steamer trunk Ikoma had previously unlocked, Sukari slid off his bunk to stalk toward it. "Is there anything in here that was worth the effort of lugging it on board?"

Ikoma gave a start, reaching out to clamp his hand down on the lid. "Don't, Sukari—I told Miss Ayame we wouldn't open anything without her!"

"Ah, come on, just one little peek…!" protested the younger steamsmith as he tried to squirm around Takumi, who had rushed to aid Ikoma by interjecting his stout frame between Sukari and the trunk.

As it turned out, the ensuing minor wrestling match inspired the change of mood Ikoma had been looking for all along.

* * *

_2019 Jordanna Morgan_


End file.
